


Late September

by Scribe



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-30
Updated: 2011-06-30
Packaged: 2017-10-20 21:49:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scribe/pseuds/Scribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a while, Dom thought he was in love with Billy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Late September

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Monaboyd Month 2011. Msilverstar gave it a much-needed beta, but then I went and got stubborn about a couple things, so any remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Notes on the title: This fic does not, in fact, take place in September. Title is a reference to/quote from the song What Am I Gonna Do Now by Todd Wright. Extensive explanation at the end.

For a while, Dom thought he was in love with Billy.

He was young, three relationships behind him but only child's play, really, had never told anyone he loved them except family. He knew what it was like to _want_ someone, to hang on their every word and gesture, to be simultaneously out of control and self-conscious in their presence, to think about them constantly when apart, but that couldn't be love. He wanted to know what changed. The emotion his parents' relationship was built on was clearly different from what he felt for, say, Matt's attractive best friend, the one who'd rendered a teenaged Dom blushing and quiet in every interaction. Endless years of that wouldn't be marriage; it would be torture.

He felt it all for Billy at first, fever-pitch, like an infatuated teenager again. As time went on, though, something had changed. It wasn't that his feelings disappeared, they were just somehow altered, channeled into something quiet and sustainable. He still thought Billy was attractive, still looked to him first to gauge a reaction to any thought, any joke, natural as breathing, but it was different. Billy wasn't constantly in his thoughts. He didn't mind when Billy went home with a girl, even had a bit of a fling himself, a few months of the old happy/miserable drama with Orlando, feelings for Billy just a background hum.

He cared about Billy, not the twisted self-interested empathy you got when you wanted to be someone's confidante, to know their secrets and have them trust you. It didn't have anything to do with Dom. He just cared. It felt…mature. Real.

It was quite a long time, actually, that Dom thought he was in love with Billy.

There were only two weeks of filming left when he realized he was wrong.

 

"I think I'm dying," groaned Elijah, trying to find a comfortable position. He ended up slouched all the way down with his knees pressed against Billy's seat from behind.

"Bill, grab the wheel for a second, would you?" said Viggo. "I'm taking off my belt."

"Um, no thank you."

"Well, you could not grab it, but that probably wouldn't end well."

"Wait for a stoplight or something."

"I've heard the expression 'eat yourself sick,'" Dom put in, "but I didn't think it was an actual thing. Honestly. I never actually thought I could eat so much that it would make me nauseous. "

"A day may come when you make me pull this car over to be sick," said Viggo happily, "but it is not this day!"

"If I could move I would hit you," said Dom.

"Seriously, dead," continued Elijah. "Kaput. No more. God knows there's plenty of extra Frodo footage, they can just paste me in to the rest of the movie."

"Hang in there, Elwood," said Dom, reaching out to pat him on the knee. "How far are we?"

"About ten minutes." Billy favored them with a cheerful smile in the rearview mirror.

"What's wrong with you, Boyd?" demanded Dom. "Why aren't you miserable like the rest of us?"

"I paced myself," said Billy, patting his stomach. "I told you that was the way to tackle a buffet, but did you listen? Of course not." He tilted his head back and started to sing quietly along with the radio, smug and serene.

And, with no warning, all the longing was back, wrapped up in Billy's profile diagonal across the car. He didn't know how he'd forgotten to watch the bob of Billy's throat as he sang, the shape of his hands, the impossible green of his eyes in startling glimpses under the streetlights. Only two weeks left, now, to store up the memories. All that time wasted.

He was lost in it, the sudden hurt, for the rest of the car ride, lost as they all staggered into Billy's place because Elijah swore he couldn't last another second on the road, as Orlando's car pulled up behind and everyone collapsed on the living room floor in an exhausted, overstuffed jumble.

He ended up next to Billy, naturally, because the two of them just fell together that way.

"I thought your stomach was up to the task," Dom said.

"Doesn’t mean I couldn't use a nap," Billy replied, already half asleep and slurring.

Dom wanted to rest his head on Billy's thigh, wanted to nuzzle into the place at the back of his neck where his haircut was growing out, the desire familiar and awful. It was the same stupid crush from the start of filming. He settled for bumping one of his legs up against Billy's, hyperaware of even that, and closed his eyes, trying to figure out how he'd been so wrong.

 

One week to go, and Dom had a hypothesis. What he had mistaken for love was more like his subconscious working out a deal without even involving him. Pining after Billy month after month would have ruined everything, gotten in the way of the film and their friendship both, so whatever part of him it was that did the pining had agreed to tone it down in exchange for the ability to keep Billy close. Now that he was leaving, though, now that there was nothing to accomplish by muting Dom's feelings, they were back in full force.

Full force was _miserable_. He could only vaguely remember his idea of being mature about the whole thing. He was jealous of every second of Billy's attention, overanalyzed every word that passed between them, went home every night angry and heartbroken and couldn't think about anything else. At least he could hide in the fact that everyone was acting a little out of character, knowing these were the last days. They were all stressed and tired and terrified and sad, and the impulse to cling to each other didn't mesh well with the way everyone's tempers were worn to a thread.

There came a night when Dom just couldn't face going out, couldn't face sitting across the table from Billy, cracking jokes and wanting so hard it ached. He stayed in and sulked instead. There really wasn't any other word for it; he wandered from room to room, discontent, not even bothering with the lights. Nothing held his attention. He hated that this was making him lose what little time he had left with the others, knew that he would regret it, and that knowledge made him even more irritable and unhappy and unfit for company.

Late evening found him haunting the kitchen, opening and closing the same cupboards like something new would appear there. He'd stopped buying groceries a while back in an attempt to empty out before he moved. It had left him with that odd collection of things that never look like much when you're hungry but are suddenly many and varied when they need to be put in boxes: ketchup and bags of flour and old cereal and an impossibly large collection of spices that had accumulated from somewhere while he wasn't paying attention, all about ninety-eight percent full.

He was looking up things to do with cake mix and no eggs, sipping a cup of tea, when Billy opened the door.

"Honey, I'm home," he said, no cheer at all in the words. Something inside Dom eased a little anyway. It had been the wrong decision to stay home, maybe, when just having Billy in his line of sight made him relax.

"Why didn't you come out with us?"

"Because I'm a fucking wreck tonight and didn't want to inflict it on you all," said Dom after a moment, too worn out for anything but honesty.

"You should have said something. I would've stayed in with you."

Dom's throat tightened with how much he wanted to have done that. The opportunity lost, now, forever. Seven days left.

"I was mostly just watching the door to see if you'd show, anyway," Billy said on his way to the kitchen. Dom closed his cake batter search and shut down the computer, listening to the familiar clatter of the kettle being put back on. After a bit Billy came back and leaned on the doorjamb between the two rooms, very still like he got when he was working up to something.

"I haven't bought my plane ticket yet," he said eventually.

"Billy!"

"I know, I know. I have all the information, I just can't bring myself to actually buy the damn thing."

He gave Dom a look that was trying for _ha ha, isn't that silly_ but didn't quite make it. He looked impossibly tired, Dom saw, refocusing out of his own head. Stretched thin. Butter over too much bread.

At least Dom was well-known as the grabby one, a good enough excuse to go over and envelop Billy in a hug like he'd wanted to all week. Billy hugged back, hard.

"I don't think I can do this," he said, digging his chin into Dom's back, and huffed out the self-detrimental cousin of a laugh. There wasn't really anything to say to that. They'd all joked about it, of course, about having mental breakdowns when suddenly faced with free time, not recognizing the stars in the northern hemisphere, turning out as insane old men who put Rogaine on their toes to relive the memories. Joking was easier than admitting that they weren't sure they could cope.

Dom started to pull away after a minute but Billy tightened his hold, so he went in the other direction instead, widening his stance and notching his arms over Billy's shoulders, settling. He could stand like that for hours. God, he wanted to, wanted nothing more than to stay here forever and feel them both breathing, chest against chest.

And then- a small thing. Billy's hand moving to cup his face, gentle, slow, his fingers marking the shape of Dom's jaw and up. Coming to rest splayed, palm cradling his cheek, two fingers cool against his neck and the tip of Billy's thumb stroking slowly over the soft place at the edge of his eye. The gesture was out of place, breathtakingly intimate.

"Bill," he said, quiet. He didn't get an answer. He couldn't see Billy's face, tucked over his shoulder, and he desperately wanted to. Trying to pull back just got Billy's arm tightened around him, tugging him in. The other hand stayed gentle, thumb sweeping down over his cheekbone now. Dom dared to reach up and tangle one hand in shaggy place at the back of Billy's hair. He'd wanted to do it so badly seven days ago, drowsing next to Billy on Elijah's floor, and his heart was pounding now, watching his own fingers.

Twining them through got a shuddery intake of breath from Billy, one he could feel everywhere they were pressed together. Still, Billy wouldn't look at him. So it was Dom who disentangled himself and leaned back, barely, just enough meet Billy's eyes, and Dom who leaned in again, barely, just enough to kiss him.

It stayed tentative and anticipatory for a long moment, both of them frozen, and then something gave way and in an instant it was frantic and messy. Billy abandoned his grip on Dom's face to fist both hands hard in the back of his t-shirt, nearly choking him, but Dom was too busy trying to both keep them upright and get his hands on Billy's skin to care. He ended up sitting, a three-step backward stumble to the sofa, Billy knees bracketing his thighs and Billy's mouth on his neck while he scrabbled for buttons.

At that point, the water boiled in the kitchen.

Dom had an unfortunate habit of leaving kettles on the stove until they burned, always meaning to get up and turn them off in a minute, so upon coming to New Zealand he'd bought the model with the most obnoxious, ear-piercing whistle he could find. It was somewhat reminiscent an opera singer being murdered while scraping her nails down a chalkboard.

It was also impossible to ignore.

Billy muttered a string of curses, only about half of which were actually intelligible as English words, and made a run for the kitchen. He was in there for significantly longer than necessary, longer even than it would take to make a cup of tea, though it seemed unlikely that he would want one just at that moment. Dom stayed sat. He was half hard, thought Billy was as well, had been seconds away from knowing for sure. His thought process was nothing but white noise.

Eventually Billy reappeared, frozen in the doorway for a long moment like the evening was repeating itself before he came to stand just in front of Dom. He looked tense, hungry, unhappy, eyes blazing as they slipped down again and again to what must have been a reddened place on Dom's neck.

"You know this is a terrible idea," he said.

"Yeah," said Dom, but with Billy looming over him just out of reach it came out as more of a sex noise than anything. Billy's eyes snapped up to his. Dom could see the pulse racing in his throat.

"It won't make anything any easier," he said.

"I know."

Billy reached out a pressed two fingers lightly, precisely, against the spot on Dom's neck that kept drawing his eyes.

"We have makeup in the morning," he said, helpless, like it was the last defense he could marshal.

"No marks above the shoulders, then," said Dom, and stripped off his shirt.

 

So they started having sex. A lot of sex. It was everything Dom had wanted except it wasn't, because sex with Billy should have been teasing and fun and luxurious, but seven days before the end it was hard and wild and _desperate_. They left marks on each other, barely managing to keep them out of sight, from fingers and mouths but also sore, spreading bruises from slamming up against walls, over tables, onto floors, pushing and pulling and clawing at each other. They blew far past the boundaries of Dom's experience without pause, and then farther still. He lost his virginity that first night and didn't care, could only think about the frantic need to be closer, didn't even realize what it meant until weeks later. It took them until the fourth day before they could go slow, and even then it stayed serious, intense, like trying to crawl under each other's skin.

It was an attempt to make up for lost time, but they had an unspoken agreement never to mention that. Dom thought _I could have had this all along, whenever I wanted_ once and only once and then blocked the thought from his mind, unable to bear it. They had what time they had.

Except, of course, they were still filming, and on top of that neither of them was willing to sacrifice what little remaining time they had to spend with the rest of the cast.

("Bill, god, stop it," Dom said one night, not doing a very good job of making his actions suit his words. "We're going to be late. And if you make me walk in there hard there won't be any doubt what we were doing."

"You think they don't know?" asked Billy, incredulous.

"You think they do?"

"It's all right, no one minds. Well, except Orlando, maybe, but that serves him right. I wanted to strangle him every day for a month when you two were dating."

"You were jealous?" asked Dom, blindsided, amazed. He'd been trying so hard not to think about what this meant for the year preceding that he'd missed Billy's side of it completely.

"Yes," said Billy, simply, stark, his eyes gone bleak and flat.

"Jesus, Bill," said Dom, because it was easier than verbalizing the swell of emotions that caused, and pulled him back down.

They ended up being late after all.)

 

In the end the only way to manage it all was to borrow from the time he usually spent sleeping, which made his moods even less dependable. Being with Billy left him an emotional mess. One moment he was irrepressibly, unrepentantly happy, the can't-stop-smiling good humor of a new relationship, not even caring that he'd been wrong about being in love because he'd forgotten the kind of euphoria that a stupid, immature crush could bring with it if it was requited. The next moment he would be utterly miserable, struggling to hold back what felt like the beginning of mourning. The countdown of days was never far from anyone's mind.

By the night of the wrap party Dom felt a little like he was underwater, hazy with exhaustion and unsteady on his feet. Billy came home with him afterward, no pretense at all, and they stretched out the sex as long as they could. It was good and it was meaningful and he wanted it, but, Dom thought, it was also a way to fill those last hours without having to think about them. Some things were easier not to face.

When they were both exhausted Billy leaned over, propping an arm by Dom's head, and sucked a vivid bruise on the side of his neck. Don't have to go into makeup tomorrow, Dom thought, and was too tired to steer his mind away from what came next. He fell asleep thinking that he wouldn't see that makeup trailer ever again.

It was the heavy, nearly comatose sleep of the thoroughly worn out, and Dom woke again without any feeling of time having passed except that the room grayed with pre-dawn light. He was furious and sick with the realization that he'd lost some count of hours, precious few that there were, and so tired he could barely move. Billy was sitting next to him, slouched against the headboard, staring unseeingly up at the wall but at least half-awake. He might have been crying before Dom woke up, but it was hard to tell—Billy cried like it was for a camera, at least the times Dom had seen, tears trickling slowly down his cheeks while his face stayed still and clear and open.

Dom cried like a child, mouth pulled down and forehead scrunched and nose running, sobbing in great gasping breaths he couldn't control. He'd gotten teary-eyed at the wrap party but hadn't cried yet and didn't want to, at least not until he was on the airplane and alone.

"Bill," he said. His voice was a hoarse, gravelly mess, probably from some combination of lack of sleep and having Billy's cock down his throat for a good portion of the evening.

Billy blinked himself back to the present, turned. It was still impossible to tell if he'd been crying, the barely-there light muting everything dim and imprecise.

Dom cleared his throat.

"Hey," he said. "Let's just not leave."

He didn't meet Billy's eyes, just stared up at the ceiling. He had imagined their last hours spent clinging, wrapped close in each other; now that the moment was here that somehow seemed more difficult to bear, an acknowledgement he wasn't ready to make. The ceiling was neutral, ordinary, like it was every day. He could feel Billy's presence beside him, his weight on the mattress, the shape of him just visible out of the corner of Dom's eye. He stretched out a hand, blindly, and Billy took it.

"All right," said Billy. "I won't if you won't."

"It's a deal."

Billy shifted around, rustling the bedclothes. He loosed Dom's hand for a moment and then took it back, running his thumb over the knuckles.

"We could go back to the Hobbiton set," he mused after a while, keeping his tone light. "I bet they won't take it down for a while yet. We'll just camp out, live in hobbit holes and eat mushrooms and things. Well, and probably a lot of takeaway."

"You do realize that there aren't actually houses behind those doors, right? They're just doors. On hills."

"Well, we can dig one out."

"Can you imagine trying to give an address for takeaway? Oh, yeah, it's just three down from Bag End, what do you mean you can't deliver there?"

"I suppose we might have to emerge once in a while for food."

"Showers, too, maybe. Installing our own plumbing is probably a little too complicated for us."

"Speak for yourself, you useless actor type. I was a tradesman. Besides, if we're living as hobbits we might as well just jump in a stream or something when we need a wash."

"During the summer, sure. And then you can be in charge of the plumbing, master tradesman. I bow to your expertise. And willingness to do physical labor."

The room lightened around them, bare except for the bed and a few stacked suitcases. They ignored it, lying naked next to each other, barely touching, spinning out the fantasy of moving to the Shire until Dom's alarm went off, shrill and insistent.

They got dressed in yesterday's clothes. There were a few loose ends to tie up: Dom's toothbrush to pack after he used it, the bedding it wasn't worth carting across the ocean carried out to the overflowing trash can. Then Billy had to go back to his place for his things, and Dom had to go to the airport, and suddenly they were standing on the front steps with the taxi waiting.

Dom avoided a kiss because he didn't think he'd ever be able to end it, but they clung to each other long enough that the cab driver tapped on his horn.

"Congratulations, we're a cliché," said Dom, rueful, and Billy granted him a brief laugh, raising his hand to ghost over Dom's cheek like the first time, like seven days ago.

"Bye, Dom," he said.

And Dom, in a daze of exhaustion and grief, unthinking, said,

"See you later."

That mistake, after everything, was what finally made him cry, clamping his own too-large hand over his mouth and jaw to hold it in until Billy's taxi was around the corner and out of sight.

 

It was several years later that Dom realized he had been in love with Billy after all, but by that time it was too late to do anything with that truth but keep it.

**Author's Note:**

> What Am I Gonna Do Now is a song that I was introduced to via a brilliant Doctor Who vid of the same name by kaydeefalls (which you should definitely check out if you're in that fandom, it's [here](http://kaydeefalls.livejournal.com/610497.html)). It was written by Todd Wright as part of a project in which he wrote and recorded 40 songs in 40 weeks to raise awareness for juvenile diabetes. It seems to be about the end of that process; kaydeefalls feels it pertinent to the end of a theater production (which I totally agree with), and somehow, perhaps not surprisingly, it became my graduation song. If it wasn't obvious, this fic was my graduation fic, and one day when I was stuck for a title What Am I Gonna Do Now came up on shuffle and it just seemed so clear how much they made sense together, both by themselves and as pieces of my own experience. Thus, Late September. (The second half of the lyric is: when all this came crashing down.)
> 
> You can (and should!) download What Am I Gonna Do Now legally and for free right [here](http://orangepopsongs.com).


End file.
